High Fashion At Bargain Rates

I want to tell you about a fabulous 3/4 length swingcoat i got for a steal. It’s by Proenza Schouler, the super high-end design team that drape starlets on the red carpet. But I got this little number for $79, because I got it at Target.

There was a time when buying high fashion brands from a giant retail store would be unthinkable, but over the past few years, Stella McCartney, Karl Lagerfeld and others have sold limited edition clothing to the masses at stores like Target and H&M.

Rob Walker is author of Buying In, and writes the weekly "Consumed" column for The New York Times Magazine, and he says the current economic downturn may mean more merging of fashion’s high and lowbrow.